Botswana has received 14 million Euros in the second phase of a European Union funded wildlife conservation and the infrastructural development of game parks and reserve initiative. The project, which commences in July, is expected to strengthen the management of game reserves and support communities engaged in natural resource management activities, Botswana's tourism minister, Pelonomi Venson said last Saturday during a luncheon for visiting EU MP, Glenys Kinnock.

A Kenyan government decision to alter forest boundaries by excising nearly 170,000 acres has been termed unconstitutional. Kenya Forests Working Group, a sub-committee of East African Wildlife Society in conjunction with others believe the Government's action will be detrimental to important catchment areas and places for protection of diverse flora and fauna.

Scientists and environmental groups often paint grim pictures of a world with a substantially altered climate. But the fact is, even if we start reducing our emissions today, we can't stop global warming in its tracks because the warming has already begun. It will take centuries before some effects, such as sea level rise, stop entirely. This leads to a common complaint some critics raise against the Kyoto Protocol, the only international framework set up to reduce the emissions that cause climate change. Alone, it will do little to curb the problem, so what's the point?

The WWF is calling on the European Union to work with West African nations to avert a potentially catastrophic collapse in fish stocks that provide a much-needed source of food and income in countries such as Senegal and Mauritania.

In 1997, The Gambia carried out a biodiversity country study to gather and analyse biological and socio-economic data as the basis for preparing its national strategy and action-plan. A national task force was formed comprising representatives from the relevant government institutions and NGOs, was established to provide both policy and technical guidance to a team of national consultants contracted from relevant institutions to handle specific sectoral and sub-sectoral issues covered in the study. According to the research and development officer at the Department of Parks and Wildlife Management (DPWM), Famara Drammeh, biological resources are vital to humanity's economic and social development, and as a result, there is a growing recognition that biological diversity is a global asset of tremendous value to present and future generations.

An innovative scheme to convert 500,000 traditional injera stoves across Eritrea will cut thousands of tons of carbon emissions each year and help to conserve the country's precious supply of firewood.

Tanzania's rare hardwood trees, including the Fagaropsis angolensis species found around Mount Kilimanjaro and the Brychylaena holschensii in the north-eastern Usambara mountain region are currently under threat from illegal logging, forest officials concede.

A major killer in human populations, tuberculosis has now jumped into populations of Africa's meerkats and mongooses. The culprit is ecotourism, a phenomenon once thought to be agreeably benign. Apparently, the hotel system now operating in the continent's once-isolated bush country has exposed the fauna to more human diseases.

Men, women and children ran for cover as violence erupted in Lenasia on Tuesday morning after police opened fire with rubber bullets. The R554 highway to Lenasia, which had been closed off in protest by about 4 000 residents over the removal of Tembelihle informal settlement residents to Vlakfontein, was strewn with odd shoes, clothes and knobkerries after police started firing rubber bullets.

It is estimated that Zimbabwe has lost about 50 percent of its wildlife, 65 percent of its tourism and up to 90 percent of safari hunting on commercial farms due to resettlement, according to Wally Herbst, Chairman of the Wildlife Producers Association.

The objective of Agenda 21, the strategy document adopted at the 1992 Rio Summit, was to maximise economic and social welfare without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. But Will Alexander of the University of Pretoria, South Africa argues that this is a utopian view, and that there should be no environmental impediments to the maximisation of economic and social welfare. He calls for multidisciplinary approaches to problems, and warns against the imposition of northern hemisphere solutions to Africa problems. This is critical, he says, in the light of the forthcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The plundering of forests is pervasive in Africa and is causing enormous damage to the environment and the economy, as well as hurting the poor the most, say NGOs from five African countries.

Two wildlife organisations have come out in support of a government bid to be allowed to sell ivory stocks on an annual basis. The Namibia Nature Foundation's Project Co-ordinator, Nils Odendaal, told The Namibian that they backed the request 100 per cent. Namibia is home to approximately 10 000 elephants and has about 40 tonnes of ivory stockpiled. Namibia's elephant population is on Cites' Appendix II, which allows one-off sales of ivory but not annual quotas.

President Museveni has called for an end to wild animal exports, saying it would be more profitable to use Uganda’s wildlife to promote tourism.

The African Development Bank has approved a grant of about US $1.5 million to finance a water and sanitation study in The Gambia, a news release from the Bank said on Wednesday.

The clouds of smog that daily blur the skyline of the central business area of Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, are the most obvious signs that air pollution is a major problem in one of Africa's biggest cities. Less obvious is the increasing toll on the health of the city's 12 million residents.

The Kumasi peri-urban area is characterised by high rates of conversion of agricultural land to private housing. Kumasi, Ghana, is also situated across a major drainage divide, resulting in a range of water quality and supply problems. Collaborative DFID-funded research by Royal Holloway, University of London, with government and NGO partners in Ghana, aims to develop and pilot a sustainable co-management approach to peri-urban watersheds.

Nakuru, the fast growing capital of the Rift Valley Province, Kenya, is a good example of a town which serves as an urban centre for a predominantly rural area. It demonstrates rural-urban linkages and shows the need for ecological protection of its own natural environment. The Localising Agenda 21 programme promotes practical measures to improve urban governance, combining the use of strategic structure plans with urban pacts to create a process of vision, action and communication.

Stuart Williams is a leading British conservationist spearheading the fight to save two of Ethiopia's rarest animals, the Ethiopian Wolf and the Grevy Zebra, both of which face imminent extinction. Williams, who lives in the Bale Mountains, speaks of the importance of Ethiopia's wildlife, the role of its national and protected parks, and how sustainable development within the country is intertwined with conservation efforts.

While many Tanzanians marked World Environment Day on 5 June with localised tree-planting and cleanups, environmental activists have drawn attention to what they say is a weak legal and institutional framework for environmental management and protection in the country.